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Thomas Keno
Summary Thomas Keno is the a Combat Android constructed from the memories of a former scientist of Goldenlight City. Using is higher than natural agility and atypical weapon mechanic, Keno is designed to overwhelm opponents with bullethell patterns using Lottery mechanics. He is one of three major antagonists in High Roller, third to Antoinette Amour and Fargus Poker. Mechanics Character Overview Thomas Keno is an Android and one of the most prominent successes of the implementation of the LdyLck AI. Keno is considered a 'perfect AI', making his psychological map indistinguishable from its organic counterpart. Keno is a jackal who is leader of the technological branch of Goldenlight City, serving as its designated High Roller and curator of the LdyLck language. His weapons are permanent augments to his body, all feeding from his internal power source, a micro-reactor capable of powering him at all times. Because he never needs to sleep, he spends every waking hour delving into either continued research with the LdyLck language, weapons and robotics development, Teaching, or fighting in High Roller. He appears as a jackal with an incredibly large set of sharpened teeth and disjointed cybernetic arms with bullet rings protruding from his forearms. His chest displays the active number drawn from his lottery attacks. Character Background: Thomas Keno is the first and most effective (known) engineered AI of Goldenlight city, formed from the memories of the late mathematician and physicist Tumas Kinw who was responsible for designing the primary power plant from which Goldenlight draws its energy. Thomas Keno is the reincarnation of his former self, adopting the new pseudonym and using the memories and experiences from his former identity to fuel a new persona. Thomas Keno began to serve as a professor at the Goldenlight University of Mathematics and Science, eventually rising the position of dean over a 15 year duration. During this time, Keno led a development effort with another scientist to create the breakthrough revolutionary language LdyLck. After it’s development and full implementation into the AI control systems of Goldenlight, the language was adapted to manage all High Roller games, which was previously managed by an entire committee. The full automation of High Roller led to a tremendous surge of the sport, bringing it to the unimaginable levels it is currently portrayed. After the implementation of the LdyLck language to High Roller, the language evolved to manage and maintain the entire infrastructure of Goldenlight, leading to an incredible renaissance as a result from the automation, with all subsystems of the casino now being run entirely by the House, the brainchild of Keno and the second scientist. After teaching for several more years to many understudies, including Acacia Spades, Keno retired from his primary teaching role to conquer the High Roller circuit and eventually claim Terminal 5 as his own, cementing his influence in the Casino and becoming an inspiring figurehead for the intellectual studies in High Roller’s culture. Keno operates on a different subset of the LdyLck language to prevent conflict with the AI systems of the House. This is the result of a flaw in the code that was exposed after the meltdown between him and the co-author of the language, which in turn exposed the vulnerability of the House to Fargus Poker. Eventually this resulted in the systematic rigging of the House to Fargus’ favor. To date, Keno is the only ‘perfect’ android in operation in the entire city of High Roller. He often forgets he is artificial, being an aftereffect of him retaining the memories of his former self. Keno also encounters the occasional existential crisis, wondering if he should even exist at all. However, he uses the motivation behind teaching and maintaining the intellectual status of Goldenlight to thrive. However, his ‘ethics’ have been called into question, as he often uses the pursuit of science to cut corners for the sake of progress. He agrees to operate with Fargus’ rigging scheme as an experiment to see just how far LdyLck can go. It is also suggested that there is some sort of negative interaction the house has developed with Keno’s own AI system, possibly clouding his morality. Passive Ability: Rising Stakes When in battle, Keno passively causes damage from all weapons to increase every minute until damage is capped at 300% base damage after 5 minutes. Keno also reduces the reload time on all weapons every minute to become capped at -250% reload time after 5 minutes. Every minute elapsed in battle, Keno is allowed to draw an additional number from his swarm pool until he maxes out at 5 drawn numbers after 5 minutes. In addition to the previous changes, all bullets Keno projects into the arena form a moving orbital torrent around the edges of the current battlefield. Contact with this torrent damages opponents and increases Keno's jackpot meter. Therefore, opponents must avoid the arena edges in combat with Keno. Weapon - Fortuna Swarm Battery The Fortuna Swarm battery takes the form Keno's forearm ring augments. The ring structures around Keno's arms are actually rings of gun barrels, which spin through his arm, reloading holobullets, and then firing them in rapid volleys into the arena. Each bullet ejected is assigned a number. When calling down bullets, Keno uses his arms to conduct the bullet waves to his target. Different values change the bullet mechanic slightly for each round called. Mechanics Every bullet ejected from the swarm battery represents a number 1-85, which is ejected into a giant orbital cloud. These bullets do minor damage over time when a player comes into contact with the orbital around the edges of the arena. Damage is only to discourage players from using the outlying wall (think battling inside a whirlpool) When the match starts, Keno draws a number 1-85. This number calls down the number of relevant bullets from the cloud to use in his current magazine. Each number’s value determines a unique bullet pattern/usage for Keno. Bullets have a longer travel time, but have decent damage. The goal of Keno is to overwhelm a player with patterns, not raw damage and direct hits. Keno is a bullethell emitter by design. As the match progresses, Keno can call additional numbers simultaneously. Every minute, keno gains an additional number, capping at 5 numbers. BULLET TYPES: * Odd Numbers (red on HUD) - Fires rapid succession of ammunition called in a burstfire round. * Even Numbers (blue on HUD) - fires a wave of horizontal bullets which move in a sinewave pattern with the spread being a function of bullets called. * Prime numbers (violet on HUD) - Fires a the clump of bullets as a large ball, which detonates into a radial ring of bullets at the detonation point. * Numbers which are multiples of five (white on HUD) - creates a bullet helix of 3 streams at the target position, splitting the bullets into thirds and sending each third along the bullet path. Keno can rotate through available called ammunition types and fire the ammunition depending on the pattern he wishes to create. Reloading redraws all of Keno's numbers. Enemy Contact Damage slowly increases jackpot meter. (includes outer orbital and fired ammunition) ALTERNATE FIRE: Keno creates a spherical shield holobullets with a range of 3m, reducing incoming damage by 50%. Jackpot - Lottery Swarm On activation, Keno activates a Lottery Swarm. Keno draws 5 numbers and all drawn numbers come down from the holobullet torrent and proceed to follow the opponent in a giant swarm, attempting to engulf them. Keno commands the destination of the swarm. Trivia * Keno is only the co-creator of the LdyLck Language. The other co-author has since disappeared. * Keno served as a mentor to Acacia Spades for several years before transitioning to High Roller. If it weren't for Keno's involvement, it is unlikely that Acacia Spades would have become a High Roller herself. * Acacia Spades is one of the few individuals in Goldenlight City for which Keno holds incredible respect, even as rivals. * The Tech involved in designing Keno's android chassis is one of the highest regarded secrets in Goldenlight for fear of his AI blueprint and technology being misappropriated. It is said that the scientists in Goldenlight City were unable to come up with all the advancements needed to design Keno alone, and reached out to foreign companies for aid. One of these companies is speculated to be Crowe Corp.